Janet Yellen Quotes

This is very intriguing to think we should audit the Fed, but I discovered that probably if they audited the Fed, it would get a clean bill because it's undoubtedly doing exactly what it's supposed to do according to the law.

It's absolutely critical that we audit the Fed so the American people can see what's going on over there. Do it from top to bottom so that we can have transparency in this entity called the Federal Reserve. Hopefully, the American people will see that we need to go back to the gold standard, which I've introduced, and get rid of the Fed.

It's true that the Federal Reserve faces a lot of political pressure and is unpopular in many circles.

The Federal Reserve ranks among the most transparent central banks. We publish a summary of our balance sheet every week. Our financial statements are audited annually by an outside auditor and made public. Every security we hold is listed on the website of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

It is the central bank governor, unlike other regulators or government secretaries, who has command over significant policy levers and has to occasionally disagree with the most powerful people in the country.

I want to be completely clear that I strongly oppose 'Audit the Fed.'

Federal Reserve officials have stressed the importance of the Fed's independence. But such independence does not mean that it is immune from Congressional oversight.

I think it would be interesting to know about the Federal Reserve. I think we should audit the Federal Reserve - it's taxpayer's money that's being used there.

If the Federal Reserve pursues a policy which Congress or the President believes not to be in the public interest, there is nothing Congress can do to reverse the policy. Nor is there anything the people can do. Such bastions of unaccountable power are undemocratic. The Federal Reserve System must be reformed, so that it is answerable to the elected representatives of the people.

Opacity on extreme levels is not addressed anywhere, including Dodd-Frank.

I am not one of those who believe that we are bound to vote supplies to cover a deficiency in the treasury whenever called on, without investigating the causes which occasioned it.

The Federal Reserve has always recognized the importance of allowing markets to work, and government oversight of financial firms will never be fully effective without the aid of strong market discipline.

The details of what the Fed did were kept secret until a provision in the Dodd-Frank Act that I sponsored required the Government Accountability Office to audit the Fed's lending programs during the financial crisis.

In 1977, when I started my first job at the Federal Reserve Board as a staff economist in the Division of International Finance, it was an article of faith in central banking that secrecy about monetary policy decisions was the best policy: Central banks, as a rule, did not discuss these decisions, let alone their future policy intentions.

The Fed needs an approach that consolidates the gains of the Greenspan years and ensures that those successful policies will continue - even if future Fed chairmen are less skillful or less committed to price stability than Mr. Greenspan has been.

To minimize market uncertainty and achieve the maximum effect of its policies, the Federal Reserve is committed to providing the public as much information as possible about the uses of its balance sheet, plans regarding future uses of its balance sheet, and the criteria on which the relevant decisions are based.

The principle that a central bank, charged with controlling inflation, should be independent from the government is unassailable. It may also be true that it's easier for the central bank to guard its independence from political pressure when it mainly holds government securities.

The Federal Reserve, the Treasury, all the regulator agencies - if there's a problem of the financial mechanism in society, the only one to fix it is government. They've got a legitimate role.

Transparency concerning the Federal Reserve's conduct of monetary policy is desirable because better public understanding enhances the effectiveness of policy. More important, however, is that transparent communications reflect the Federal Reserve's commitment to accountability within our democratic system of government.

Fostering transparency and accountability at the Federal Reserve was one of my principal objectives when I became Chairman in February 2006.

The organization of the government itself is something which we ought to examine in a more self-conscious way - the Federal Reserve and the Treasury and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The mission that each of them has is mainly economic but should be informed by good organizational practices.

The powers vested in the Federal Reserve Board seen to me highly dangerous especially where there is political control of the Board.

I don't have any influence over the Fed [Federal Reserve System], none at all. It's carefully isolated from any influence by the President or Congress.

If you move up the timetable of when we disclose the transcript of our Open Market Committee, … you will affect what is said and the way that it is said.

The investment banks should either choose to be regulated as banks or should arrange to conduct their affairs to not require the stop-gap support of the Federal Reserve.